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Monday, May 9, 2016

Getting Organised & The Goals Ahead

Eleven
years of study, research, and practice in the Pagan “field” can result in quite
a mess of documents, books, writings, information, and resources. Add to that
the academic pursuit of religious study (in the same “field”) and the various
changes and evolutions of one’s personal path and you’ve got a chaotic hoard of
information that needs to be organized, filtered and evaluated.

Part of
that is finally designing a proper “grimoire” where I can include all sorts of
things regarding the Triskelion. Since doing so physically (i.e. in an actual
book) tends to be unviable since you can’t really guess how much space you will
need for each section and binders get too messy for me, I decided to make it
digital. Therefore, I’m compiling all Triskelion-related information in an
OneNote notebook. At the same time, I’ll still use my current physical
notebooks; I’ll simply use the digital “grimoire” as a “master textbook” of
sorts. I will also keep recording relevant information in the Hekataion, as I
am obliged to do in my devotional duties.

The
Eisagogikon is comprised of the title page (which includes the declaration of
intent for the book and a dedication prayer), a contents page, and an
additional page with a summary of the Triskelion as well as a short bio of
mine.

The Liturgy
part is divided into three sections, because of how extensive it is. The first section
is called Hieratikon and includes all practical material, such as rituals,
spells, correspondences and so on. The second section is called Hymnologion and
is a collection of hymns, chants, and incantations. The third section is called
Theologikon and it includes information and writings on the Gods and Spirits of
the Triskelion as well as Triskelion theology essays and articles.

The last
part of the book is called Hemerologion and it’s a kind of “free” space: it has
notes, a to-do list, a journal for recording my experiences, thoughts, and observations,
as well as my religious calendar. I chose to include the calendar in the
Hemerologion as opposed to the Hieratikon because of the need for
revisions, design, and notes on its development.

In addition
to making the Book of the Triskelion, I’m in the – long and arduous – process of
checking, clearing, and organizing my resources (books, articles, writings
etc). There’s a veritable nest of folders filled to the brim with material I
have accumulated over the years. Moreover, I’ve got a huge number of saved
bookmarks and most of them are uncategorized!

This kind
of “Spring cleaning” is necessary because the clutter I’m dealing with all this
time only serves to hinder me, especially when it comes to doing research
(hunting for references and citations is hell when you don’t know where or even
if you have what you’re looking for).My plan is to
categorise my material and resources based on their general subject, such as “Research/Religious
Studies”, “Triskelion”, “Paganism”, “Witchcraft” and so forth.

Beyond organization,
I have a number of goals for the near future and many of them are relevant to
this blog. For starters, I have two devotional projects underway, which will be
published on this blog in time. They’re the Hymn Project and the Art Project.

The Hymn
Project is, as the name suggests, about writing hymns for a number of deities
and spirits of considerable significance for the Triskelion. These hymns will
be published here, in addition to exegetical exploration of the why and how
behind them (e.g. meanings and reasons for the epithets used, intent and uses
of the hymns etc).

The Art
Project revolves around making paintings/drawings of various Gods and Spirits
of the Triskelion, with the intent of honouring them as well as creating my own
“sacred images” for the worship of those Gods. I will probably write interpretations
and explanations for those art pieces as well.

Furthermore,
I want to post on this blog at least twice per week and, more importantly, I
want to stick to doing that, even when I’m not terribly motivated or inspired. I
also have two more projects I’m working on, which will probably follow the Hymn
and Art ones. These are a 101-type collection of articles and a series of religious
research papers. As I’ve mentioned before, I might expand those and turn them
into e-books. We’ll see.